WAR CRIMES TRIAL UNDERWAY.

Publication: North Caucasus Weekly Volume: 2 Issue: 5

It has been announced that a former Chechen field commander, Salautdin Temirbulatov, aged 39, is to stand trial in Kabardino-Balkariya for “war crimes”–that is, the execution, captured on videotape, of four Russian contract soldiers–committed in April 1996 during the previous conflict. He is the first Chechen separatist leader to face trial for war crimes. If found guilty, Temirbulatov could face execution, despite a moratorium on capital punishment declared when Russia was accepted into the Council of Europe (CRS, January 19).